A Real Life Broadway Gay Wedding

Same sex couples get married on stage at the St. James Theatre, where Hair is currently playing.

Broadway Actor In TV Commercial: Paris Remillard

Current Claude on Broadway's HAIR, Paris Remillard is in this Zales commercial.

Macy's Thanksgiving Parade

Here are some of the performances from Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. Enjoy!


Natalie Cortez and the girls of West Side Story


Sutton Foster and the cast of Shrek


The Cast of Ragtime


Trent Kowalik and the cast of Billy Elliot performing Shine


Gavin Creel and the cast of Hair performing Aquarius

HAIR Cast at the National Equality March

HAIR Marches For Equality

Gavin Creel, Claude in the Public's production of Hair, sings I got Life in this video from Newsweek. It's to promote the National Equality March which will be held tomorrow 10/11 in Washington. The the producers of HAIR and it's Tribe has canceled their Sunday show to participate. Broadway Impact, an organization created by Gavin has arranged for buses to take people from NYC to DC and back. To join the march and for more information about the Equality bus, click here (scroll down).

On the Pop side of things, Lady Gaga is also joining the march. Here she is inviting people to congregate in DC:

Who Said Hippies Don't Like Beyonce?!

This cracked me up! Gavin Creel and Will Swenson of HAIR doing their version of Beyonce's Single Ladies. LOL!

Starting Them Young

This adorable 3 year old will give Gavin Creel a run for his money! Check him out rocking to Hair complete with on beat choreography and peace sign! Shake that hair boy!

Bad HAIR Day

It's a revue! If I had known.......then this might have been a different post.

Well, I didn't see the movie nor have seen any previous production of Hair but I'm familiar with the songs from this musical. However, I've seen the cast's guest appearance in The Late Show with David Letterman plus the featured number at 2009 Tony Awards. Both performances were great and energetic. So it comes a bit disappointing when I finally saw the show. I didn't hate it but I wished I liked it more than I actually do because I know it's an iconic musical.

I think I just got so over hyped that what I saw didn't live up to it. It wasn't because of the actors. In fact they were great........energetic and exuberant. It wasn't because of the music. For who wouldn't like Let The Sunshine In, Aquarius, Hair, Good Morning Starshine, I Believe in Love, Ain't Got No or Going Down? They're really great songs representative of an era. It wasn't because of the staging where the fourth wall was constantly crossed. Although I must admit it got a bit overstimulating at times and I didn't know where to look when the cast would go into the audience. It was because of the lack of narrative. I felt like the great songs were patched together.....but loosely patched by the lack of narrative. I wish I knew why Claude finally decided to join the army when clearly he was totally against the war. It would have made the ending resonate more for me. Speaking of the ending.......SPOILERS......the Tribe was celebrating and singing Let The Sunshine In, then they walk out from the stage to the 2 aisles in the orchestra as the volume of their singing decrescendos and reverberates in the theatre, a single spot light reveals Claude.......lying on the American flag on the floor......in his military regalia. It's a very powerful scene. Even made more moving when there was dead silence on the stage and from the audience. It is potent.......and that I did liked.

Gavin Creel was very charismatic as Claude. Will Swenson was great as Berger while Caissie Levy (Sheila) and Allison Case (Crissy) have beautiful voices. Again, I have to say that the whole cast is very good, great voices and projects the value of celebrating life. It really does feel that there's a party every night at the Hirschfeld Theatre.


Here are some of the pictures from the stagedoor:


Gavin Creel (Claude)



Will Swenson (Berger)



Bryce Ryness (Woof)



Caissie Levy (Sheila)



Andrew Kober



Steel Burkhardt (Tribe)

Michael James Scott (Tribe-swing)

Oh check out some celebrity sighting we had.........they were in the audience that day:

Tracie Thoms (Joanne - RENT film)

Celia Keenan-Bolger (25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Saved)

Tonight, Tonight.....an Awesome TONY Night!

Well, last night was the Superbowl for theatre geeks like me......the Tony Awards! And it was a great and efficient show! We also had a great Tony party but that's another story.

I started watching the show online which had the Creative Arts Tony Awards. It started with a surprise!. For the first time in Tony history, Next To Normal and Billy Elliot tied for the Best Orchestration award. What a great way to start the night! It was great to see and hear loud cheers for Hunter Bell (Title Of Show) when the nominees for Best Book were announced. And he had co-creator Jeff Bowen right beside him! I was actually hoping he would win but alas Lee Hall of Billy Elliot did. Tony Award winner last year, Laura Benanti was the co-host for the Creative Arts awards and she was really funny. Even referencing bad audience behavior and what might happen to you (clearly referencing the Patti Lupone incident last year when she stopped the show because someone in the audience was taking flash photography). Too bad TV viewers didn't get to see that.

The broadcast then moved to CBS. They had a glittering opening number (see above)! It stretched for 11 minutes with every nominated show featured as well as well known performers like Elton John, Dolly Parton and Poison. It makes you want to see a show doesn't it?

For the presentation of the awards, I love Frank Langella's candid musings about not being nominated complete with print ad of Man for All Seasons! And I had heard that he did that off prompter! Amazing! It was really touching to see Broadway royalty Angela Lansbury win her 5th Tony for Blithe Spirit. She was so classy and visibly overwhelmed with the win. I digress but wasn't it amusing to see Shrek, Princess Fiona and Donkey sitting behind her? Karen Olivo's emotional speech was also poignant. And I must say I like her dress! It was also so charming to see the very talented boys from Billy Elliot speechless after they won. It was so adorable! I was so glad for Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey's win for Best Score in Next To Normal as well as a Best Actress award for Alice Ripley. Her speech, although with a great message...... kinda scared me a bit ha ha! I still think she was great though.

I loved the production numbers but the best was from Next To Normal who sang You Don't Know. I didn't think that would translate well on TV but it did! It was so intense and emotional but what great music! Aaron Tveit has such a beautiful voice. I was dissappointed with the choice from Billy Elliot which was Angry Dance. If I hadn't seen the show yet I would have just thought the boy had tantrums. It didn't showcase the show well, although, Trent Kowalik, as the Billy was wonderful. I wished they did Solidarity instead. I also loved West Side Story's Dance at the Gym. It featured the intricate choreography of the show. Very energetic! Though I haven't seen it yet, Hair's number made me excited that I'll be seeing it soon!

I did like it that the plays, and there were a lot of critically acclaimed ones this season, were featured too! Scenes from each play were shown with the cast introducing them. Nice way to honor them.

The In Memoriam segment introduced by Bebe Neuwirth with the Broadway Inspirational Voices singing What I Did For Love was lovely. It reminded me how much great talent theatre has lost this year.......Natasha Richardson, Bea Arthur, Paul Newman, Estelle Getty and Ertha Kitt just to name a few. It was beautifully done.

As much as I enjoyed the show's production, I was so frustrated with the CBS TV broadcast. There were horrendous audio problems specially during the opening number and some performances. I mean not hearing lyrics but instead hearing people talking backstage??!!! Plus you couldn't hear the Jets and the Sharks facing off nor Trent's taps during Angry Dance. For a network that has produced the show before, I mean, common CBS this it the Tonys! How can you have horrible sound during the musical numbers! The camera angles and shots too were dizzying! It also didn't help that they had touring shows like Mamma Mia, Legally Blonde and Jersey Boys perform individual numbers. Those were just stale for me. I could have done without that. Plus it took time off from the last few award presentations which were major awards! The presentors had to hurry off reading the nominees list!

And last but not the least, the gem of the evening, Neil Patrick Harris! He was a great host! He was witty, acerbic and just plain charming. I love his sushi-gate dig at Jeremy Piven! As he said in an earlier interview, he didn't want to take anything away from the featured shows but his main role would just be a facilitator. I hope they get him as a host again. His show stopping closer was one of the highlights of the night (see video below)! Kudos to Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman of Hairspray fame for last minute lyric switches! It was.......wait for it........LEGENDARY! Read about how they did it here.

What a great season! For a full list of winners, click here. Now I'm off again to watch my DVD of the broadcast. So get out there and go see a Broadway Show!

The dawning of the Age of Aquarius

Hair the Musical is back on Broadway! And Sh-k-boom/Ghostlight Records is releasing the revival cast album this spring. Let the sun shine in!

Age of Aquarius

Hair opens on Broadway 31 March 2009. Buy tickets at Givenik, with a portion of the proceeds going to LIFEBeat.